Riding around the world: kit advice

[Will Frazer]

Hello, I'm setting off with a friend in April to cycle around the world. Hoping I might get some advice on here about various bits of kit we're currently contemplating:
1) Dynamo charging hub - do they work, where can you get them, easy to fit?
2) Computer - what sort of laptop is most likely to survive in our panniers?
3) Ukraine/Russia - Obviously on dodgy ground at the moment but anyone with any advice for cycling through this part of the world?
4) Water - chlorine/iodine tablets are something else?
5) Wild camping across Europe/Danube cycle path - any advice?
6) Sleeping bag - just get a cheap synthetic one or invest in a down one?

Any thoughts really welcome. More info on our trip here: http://ridingforrhinos.org

Thanks!

 

[screenman]

I wish you all the luck Will, but the thing that makes me worry on your post is asking questions that should have been answered on shorter tours.

 

[MontyVeda]

Hello, I'm setting off with a friend in April to cycle around the world. Hoping I might get some advice on here about various bits of kit we're currently contemplating:
1) Dynamo charging hub - do they work, where can you get them, easy to fit?
2) Computer - what sort of laptop is most likely to survive in our panniers?
3) Ukraine/Russia - Obviously on dodgy ground at the moment but anyone with any advice for cycling through this part of the world?
4) Water - chlorine/iodine tablets are something else?
5) Wild camping across Europe/Danube cycle path - any advice?
6) Sleeping bag - just get a cheap synthetic one or invest in a down one?

Any thoughts really welcome. More info on our trip here: http://ridingforrhinos.org

Thanks!

A couple from Glasgow cycled around the world a few years ago.... they went south of the Caspian & Black Sea going through Iran and Turkey, and according to a friend who knows them, the Iranians were by far the friendliest people on the planet.

as for your sleeping bag.... there are some very good and expensive synthetic ones available... you shouldn't be considering 'cheap'.

would a tablet suffice as opposed to a laptop?

 

[Yellow7]

Hi Will.

Are you departing this April??

1. Dynamo. Yes they most certainly work! For me it avoids carrying copious amounts of spare batteries and being self sufficient, not worrying about needing a campsite for a mains supply, although petrol stations can prove useful for a snack and literally a recharge!!
The German SON makes the most efficient hub (minimal drag), myself as an electronics engineer design / make my own chargers but there’s various manufactures making chargers such as Busch & Mueller. Solar chargers are also available but sunshine can never be guaranteed…unlike the revolving wheels of ya bike!! If you use a dynamo hub you’ll need rims, I suggest the DRC MT19, they survived the 'roads' of Congo!

2. Computer. My Asus Eee PC 1001p has proven itself well. I always pack it in my clothes pannier to aid padding – minimising vibration, it was Africa proof! and still working well.

3. No advice.

4. Iodine tablets vs water filter. For a year-long trip taking enough tablets would fill valuable pannier space, buying them en-route may not prove so easy to source so the water filter option proves best. I use Katadyn’s Pocket filter. It’s such a simple design they have a 20 year warranty (excluding the filter), they’re quite expensive – as can prove a parasite illness.

The past few years has seen an increase in other manufactures using newer nano-technology filters, but I prefer using one with a proven [global] track-record.

5. Danube cycle route. As part of my tour last year I cycled from Budapest to Deggendorf along the Danube, due to floods most campsites were closed so free-camping was the norm, you’ll find plenty of areas tucked out the way but a few times as dusk fell - dry bank permitting - I pitched next to the river, this gave no problems. In Germany and Austria there is a cycle route next to the river but in Czech Republic & Hungary not always but the roads are very quiet.

6. Sleeping bag. Selection depends on what temperatures you’re expecting. I’ve never camped less than a few degrees so a budget bag from Decathlon has always been fine.

mark.

 

[stephenjubb]

1) Dynamo charging hub - do they work, where can you get them, easy to fit?

Yes, dynamo spa cycles, charger - ewerk (google it - there are others), if you can wire a plug you can fit them)

2) Computer - what sort of laptop is most likely to survive in our panniers?

Something small, light you are not bothered if gets knicked. Tablet a good idea, very flexibile.

3) Ukraine/Russia - Obviously on dodgy ground at the moment but anyone with any advice for cycling through this part of the world?

try www.crazyguyonabike.com - lots of stories on touring all over world.

4) Water - chlorine/iodine tablets are something else?

Take tablets and a filter. Tablets as a backup if filter fails (tablets add a unique taste to water and not good if used daily long term)

5) Wild camping across Europe/Danube cycle path - any advice?

Email Tom at https://janapar.com/ he has done this through extensively, wild camped and is a great bloke and more than willing to help.

6) Sleeping bag - just get a cheap synthetic one or invest in a down one?

If a lengthy tour go synthetic, everyone says down, they are great in all respects, light, pack down easily but have one downside. They are difficult to clean. After 3 - 4 months of use, they will not loft as well, and thus not keep you as warm (you can put in a dryer for a temporary boost but eventually they will need cleaning). where would you get a down sleeping bad clean in russia? A synthetic bag you just put in a washing machine/dryer. You can wash down bags yourself, but takes several hours and if you get it wrong, no sleeping bag.

I'm all for saving wildlife so any info you need, irrespective of the amount p.m. me.

Regards

Steve

 

[Ticktockmy]

Interesting project, 7 Months sounds a long time, but once you run into the bureaucracy along your route, you will soon find that time scale running out, many years ago when I was cycling down through Africa I wasted 3 weeks in Cairo waiting for my Sudan visa's to be issued. On the road you really need to play it by ear, mechanical failures and human failures (illness) will also slow you down.
Equipment will have to cope with a range of weather and road conditions, depending on your route you will find that you might have to carry extra water and food.
Water wise, get a one of the Micro filters, chlorine/iodine tablets work well but make tea taste like crap.
Study other peoples blogs on http://www.crazyguyonabike.com as see where they had problems with relationship to your planned route.
Be careful in some places about talking about your Rhino project or indeed about anything about your feelings of disgust regarding use of animal parts for good luck charms or medicine, because the locals my not appreciate it, as they might be the end user of such.
Finally best of luck, and have a enjoyable tour.

 

[HorTs]

I can only offer advice on 1, 2 and 6.

1. Never used but I only hear good things about dynamo hubs, they are heavy but ultimately you're not going to be racing around.

2. How much are you going to be typing on it? You could consider a tablet if the answer is not very much (though you could buy a wireless keyboard). If you'll be typing a lot then get a what would be refereed to as a netbook, something with solid state storage (look for SSD) rather than a traditional hard disk - this wont be affected by knocks and bangs - traditional HDs have moving parts.

6. Like others have said, don't consider synthetic as a 2nd choice, both have their place. I'd imagine that the sleeping bag will be the single biggest item you'll carry, probably even larger than the tent (depending on choice). If I was going on a long tour then I'd probably go for a synthetic - you don't want a spilt cup of tea to ruin your bag.

 

[Yellow7]

Be careful in some places about talking about your Rhino project or indeed about anything about your feelings of disgust regarding use of animal parts for good luck charms or medicine, because the locals my not appreciate it, as they might be the end user of such.

I couldn't disagree any further. Many of the 'end users' are unaware of the implications their traditions have elsewhere in the world so it's all about education. Shying away from the very subject that's fuelling their tour for 'fear' of upsetting said end user would seem a very cowardly approach to dealing with the problem.

 

[Crankarm]

I would go for a Rab Neutrino Endurance 600 with hydrophobic down weight 1.1kg or if more warmth needed if much colder climate, then a RAB Andes 800 or 1000.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/rab-neutrino-endurance-600-sleeping-bag-81510110?id_colour=133
Also the Mountain Equipment Helium 800 weighing in at 1.1kg.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/mountain-equipment-helium-800-sleeping-bag-81510088?id_colour=98

For synthetic it would be a Deuter Travel Lite 350 - 3.5/4 season bag although not that light at 1.7kg. The 300 is lighter but not so warm only a 3 season bag.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/deuter-travel-lite-350-sleeping-bag-82410079?id_colour=6924

But you can't beat down sleeping bags for warmth, comfort and low weight.

 

[BalkanExpress]

I would go for a Rab Neutrino Endurance 600 with hydrophobic down weight 1.1kg or if more warmth needed if much colder climate, then a RAB Andes 800 or 1000.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/rab-neutrino-endurance-600-sleeping-bag-81510110?id_colour=133
Also the Mountain Equipment Helium 800 weighing in at 1.1kg.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/mountain-equipment-helium-800-sleeping-bag-81510088?id_colour=98

For synthetic it would be a Deuter Travel Lite 350 - 3.5/4 season bag although not that light at 1.7kg. The 300 is lighter but not so warm only a 3 season bag.
http://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/deuter-travel-lite-350-sleeping-bag-82410079?id_colour=6924

But you can't beat down sleeping bags for warmth, comfort and low weight.

Rock+run have some cracking sleeping bag deals on at the moment (better than the deal I got on my new bag)
http://www.rockrun.com/deals/sleeping-bags

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Regretfully the Rab Neutrino bag I took with us (albeit 3 years ago now - how time flies) did not last more than a month. Lovely bag, but had some big issues and one of them was the thinness of the material itself which meant I ended up having to stitch it back together several times in that single month due to minor 'issues' resulting in holes that the down came out of. I have other Rab bags and they have been stunning, just not this one. I may have ended up with a duff bag, I don't know, but repeatedly having to repair the bag before I could use it got to be frustrating to say the least.

Laptop - entirely up to you, but my OH is heavy handed and we took a Dell Latitude E4310 with us which is a 13 inch screen. We put in inside an Exped dry crush bag designed for laptops, and my OH carried it vertically in his rear pannier against the pannier rack. Several times the bike fell over onto it and it was never an issue - I am typing on this on it now as we speak. We did buy the world wide insurance with it (complete care - only covers around half the countries in the world though!) to cover any potential issues such as hdd failures and broken screens etc (I worked in a school as an IT Engineer) and saw way too many broken screens from laptops being dropped/knocked etc not to take something because I though cycling with one would be a problem, but I was very pleasantly surprised as to how robust this machine actually has been.

Dynamo hubs work, so do solar panels to recharge AA batteries. We also have a power gorilla which we found to be much more useful - which recharged from a solar panel or mains (either will do) and I would guess if I really wanted it to, it would recharge from the SON28 hubs we had, but I never bodged together a connector for that.

Get your Russian visa before you leave the UK... Ukraine at the moment I would be tempted to give a miss, but be aware that if you do go there, like a number of other eastern European countries, there are limited border crossings that you can use and they are pretty much all the major roads rather than those minor roads we all much prefer. Just pretend to be a car and get on with it... We had fun crossing into Belarus because of the issues relating to a bike not having a registration plate, in the end we became Bike 1 and Bike 2 (at least that is what it translated to!)... You may have to cadge a lift to get across the border crossing into Ukraine from Poland - that is one I have often heard about having issues with, but usually someone with a van will help out and take you 1-2km including the crossing - its a bikes not allowed problem...

Water - depends on how much you value your health! you will need more than 1 method unless you go for the newer less tried technology. We took 2 methods, a katadyn water filter which took out bacteria and protozoa (plus larger matter) and then a UV pen for killing viruses. The UV pen took specialist rechargeable batteries which we could recharge with mains or that PowerGorilla of ours.

If you have time, consider taking a suitable first aid course for remote areas. Something like this I can seriously recommend. Not cheap, but then being able to save your own life when you need to (or someone else's) is worth every penny in my book (and we ended up needing to save my life when we were attacked by a pack of wild dogs and I was left with a severed major artery, severed nerve, punctured major vein and needing +100 stitches to a very serious leg wound and a husband in shock - he had also been bitten in temperatures below -15C.). http://wildernessmedicaltraining.co.uk/explorer-series-far-from-help are an excellent company and well worth the money.

Edit: we both did their 4 day course which is exceptionally useful!
http://wildernessmedicaltraining.co.uk/advanced-medicine-4

 

[Crankarm]

Regretfully the Rab Neutrino bag I took with us (albeit 3 years ago now - how time flies) did not last more than a month. Lovely bag, but had some big issues and one of them was the thinness of the material itself which meant I ended up having to stitch it back together several times in that single month due to minor 'issues' resulting in holes that the down came out of. I have other Rab bags and they have been stunning, just not this one. I may have ended up with a duff bag, I don't know, but repeatedly having to repair the bag before I could use it got to be frustrating to say the least.

Laptop - entirely up to you, but my OH is heavy handed and we took a Dell Latitude E4310 with us which is a 13 inch screen. We put in inside an Exped dry crush bag designed for laptops, and my OH carried it vertically in his rear pannier against the pannier rack. Several times the bike fell over onto it and it was never an issue - I am typing on this on it now as we speak. We did buy the world wide insurance with it (complete care - only covers around half the countries in the world though!) to cover any potential issues such as hdd failures and broken screens etc (I worked in a school as an IT Engineer) and saw way too many broken screens from laptops being dropped/knocked etc not to take something because I though cycling with one would be a problem, but I was very pleasantly surprised as to how robust this machine actually has been.

Dynamo hubs work, so do solar panels to recharge AA batteries. We also have a power gorilla which we found to be much more useful - which recharged from a solar panel or mains (either will do) and I would guess if I really wanted it to, it would recharge from the SON28 hubs we had, but I never bodged together a connector for that.

Get your Russian visa before you leave the UK... Ukraine at the moment I would be tempted to give a miss, but be aware that if you do go there, like a number of other eastern European countries, there are limited border crossings that you can use and they are pretty much all the major roads rather than those minor roads we all much prefer. Just pretend to be a car and get on with it... We had fun crossing into Belarus because of the issues relating to a bike not having a registration plate, in the end we became Bike 1 and Bike 2 (at least that is what it translated to!)... You may have to cadge a lift to get across the border crossing into Ukraine from Poland - that is one I have often heard about having issues with, but usually someone with a van will help out and take you 1-2km including the crossing - its a bikes not allowed problem...

Water - depends on how much you value your health! you will need more than 1 method unless you go for the newer less tried technology. We took 2 methods, a katadyn water filter which took out bacteria and protozoa (plus larger matter) and then a UV pen for killing viruses. The UV pen took specialist rechargeable batteries which we could recharge with mains or that PowerGorilla of ours.

If you have time, consider taking a suitable first aid course for remote areas. Something like this I can seriously recommend. Not cheap, but then being able to save your own life when you need to (or someone else's) is worth every penny in my book (and we ended up needing to save my life when we were attacked by a pack of wild dogs and I was left with a severed major artery, severed nerve, punctured major vein and needing +100 stitches to a very serious leg wound and a husband in shock - he had also been bitten in temperatures below -15C.). http://wildernessmedicaltraining.co.uk/explorer-series-far-from-help are an excellent company and well worth the money.

Edit: we both did their 4 day course which is exceptionally useful!
http://wildernessmedicaltraining.co.uk/advanced-medicine-4

Rab have a life time warranty on their kit. You should return it to them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Rab have a life time warranty on their kit. You should return it to them. You might be pleasantly surprised.

I would have done, but my OH then killed it totally in a faulty tumble drier after it got rather wet and he thought drying it was a good idea... the tumble drier set fire to it . It turned out that its 'low' cycle didn't work and it went through on a hot cycle instead and my OH had left it unattended...

I have 3 other Rab sleeping bags which have been excellent (Premiere 1100, Quantum 400, Quantum 200) it was just the material on the Neutrino that was crap which was a real shame because it was a much nicer bag than the Marmot which is was replaced with.

 

[MikeG]

Some good advice so far. My standard bit of advice for sleeping bags is to have a thin liner bag inside your sleeping bag. This keeps the main bag clean, is easily washed, and can be slept in without the main bag on those hot sweaty nights when a sleeping bag would be too warm. Be very careful with the type of roll mat you sleep on. The Thermarest-type self inflating things are utterly brilliant, and as comfortable as a bed, but get something that is adequately puncture resistant, which you can repair, and which has a non-slip surface. I used to get so fed up waking up in the middle of the night lying alongside my nice comfy mat on the hard lumpy ground.

The other bit of advice I would give is about cleanliness/ hygiene. Learn how to wash in a small bowl full of water (a wash cloth is essential). If you let this slip, you will be very vulnerable to fungal infections, and jock-rot is the last thing you need when sitting on your bike all day. Athletes foot is a real possibility.

Finally, give a lot of thought to your medical kit, and to your inoculations before you go. I would suggest that the rabies course is an absolute essential, as you will certainly be of great interest to dogs for much of your route. You must take a broad spectrum antibiotic, and have the prescription covering it. You must also have medical and travel insurance, and a credit card with enough on it to enable you to fly out in an emergency from anywhere in the world.

I'd leave the computer at home. What on earth would you want that for on a trip like this?

Anyway, have fun.

Mike

 

[doog]

Two recent round the world blogs im reading. Look at their kit.

http://www.dereksbiketrip.com/gear_review/

http://thatemilychappell.com/kit/